Popular Culture Is An Eternal Gift Of God
Will the new heavens and new earth include renewed popular culture?
When some Christians critique popular culture — including fantastical stories — they demonstrate they are blind to popular culture’s purposes today and forever.12
This may also be the most crucial belief behind parents’ assumptions that popular culture is at best a nuisance and at worst a potential Satanic or sinful infection in their homes.
Is popular culture eternally worthless?
Some parents have long since accepted as settled truth that God has no plans for the physical world. They naturally conclude that anything in culture or popular culture is utterly worthless in the eternal story.
Other parents are slightly more positive when they act as if popular culture is a means to other primary ends — entertainment, moral instruction, and the other purposes we explored in chapter 2.
Either way, parents conclude that popular culture is less “spiritual” than practices such as Bible study or moral parenting. Their conclusion is logical: why shouldn’t we ban something that is ultimately corrupt or useless for eternity, or else restrict stories and songs because they are at best a nuisance? If I believed these things about popular culture, I would do the same.
Does ‘I am making all things new’3 include popular culture?
But such parents are blind to the truths we explored in chapter 2:
- That God created the world, culture, and popular cultures originally good;
- That Adam and Eve’s sin brought corruption to these three gifts but not hopelessness for their redemption;
- That Jesus Christ is redeeming his people to form a counter-culture that changes other cultures from the inside-out;
- And that Jesus will return to make all things new for a glorious physical Kingdom that will include a resurrected world, cultures, and popular cultures.
All these good gifts will last forever, purged of man’s abuse and sinful corruption. God did not create a world only to throw the world away,4 any more than he created humans only to throw them away!
I have found my own Christian life utterly transformed by this biblical doctrine. I can only say that the Holy Spirit constantly uses this truth to draw me away from my own temptations to abuse popular culture for sinful reasons. Instead he is constantly driving me to receive these good gifts of God with thanksgiving (1 Tim. 4:4).
But when I try to broach this topic with many Christians, I’m met with pushback or at best blank stares.
They have been raised — as I was also raised — on a steady diet of evangelical popular culture with unbiblical definitions, images, and teachings about eternity. They may not accept the old pictures of heaven as a land of clouds and harp-playing angels. But they are certain that Scripture requires that they reflexively deny that eternity could be anything like earth.
Out come partially quoted verses such as “No eye has seen, no ear has heard (1 Cor. 2:9, NIV)5 and poetic phrases such as “time shall be no more” (which is from a hymn, not Scripture) or “only two things in this earthly life are eternal: God’s written word and human souls.”
We must open our eyes.
We must see that we — inspired by myths, slogans, evangelical pop culture and sometimes plain heresy — have blinded ourselves to the glorious truth that God will resurrect a people for himself from every tribe, tongue, and nation, and that he will come down to a new earth to live forever with his people as their God (Rev. 21:1-3).
Culture on our renewed earth may even include popular culture created by non-Christians that includes some incorrect ideas or beliefs, because the artist still reflected God’s creative work in the story or song. If anything we could enjoy these flawed secular stories and songs for eternity because we will have no ability to abuse these things for sin and every ability to discern any of their flaws!
In the forever-world, saints will dwell in holiness and enjoy human culture — not only in books, dramas and poetry, but also popular culture that we may presume is “trivial” such as carnivals, comedy films, comics, jokes and video games.
We must repent of our blindness to such a vast vision of redemption and delve deeper into Scriptures like those we explored in chapter 2 — texts that promise God’s people will be freed from sin forever to worship their Creator in a perfect physical paradise and reflect his image in their acts of cultural creation. And we must teach this truth to our children to help them see creativity and culture not in the darkness of suspicion but in Scripture’s light.
- This article is based on a work-in-progress nonfiction book by two coauthors and myself. ↩
- Edit, Sept. 29, 2014: The title and phrasing that “culture/popular culture is God’s gift” could connote the notion that God is the direct author of popular culture. Rather, God has gifted people with the ability to make culture/popular culture and thereby imitate His role as Creator. God also gave the gift of the “cultural mandate” in Gen. 1:26-28. ↩
- Rev. 22:5. ↩
- This may seem to contradict Scripture passages that stress the passing away of earth’s sinful ages. Many Christians recall the warning of 2 Peter 3:10 in the KJV that in the end “the earth also and the works that are therein shall be burned up.” But the key phrase “burned up” is a disputable translation based on newer and less-reliable manuscripts. Newer translations based on older manuscripts promise a slightly different fate for planet earth: “the earth and the works that are done on it will be exposed.” Peter’s language is not that of annihilation but of purification or refinement: purging unwanted elements to refashion something new from the original material. Moreover, if creation will be annihilated, that would render creation’s Rom. 8 “groaning” for redemption futile. Randy Alcorn addresses the “burned up” objection in chapter 15 (PDF) of his book Heaven. ↩
- Read verse 10: what we didn’t see or hear before, God has revealed — which isn’t heaven but the Gospel. ↩
🙂
Interesting thoughts – I’ll be pondering this. Thanks!
I wouldn’t be surprised if we play video games or go to carnivals in “the new heaven and the new earth”, but I don’t think anyone can say we will. The New Earth is not simply going to be the old earth with the sin taken out. We’re in for some major transformations. God is going to abolish marriage. Can video games be safe?
Once I would have said so, but at this point it seems one needs a compelling reason to say for sure that something won’t exist in the New Earth. Otherwise I presume it will be there, all purged of sin — refined as is the image of 2 Peter 3 — and ready to be enjoyed with thanksgiving.
Sin clearly won’t make the cut because, well, it’s sin.
But Jesus specifically told us marriage will be fulfilled in eternity.
I think the Christian’s guiding principle ought to be: if that thing won’t stand a chance for renewal/redemption in new Earth (with the exception of marriage), why enjoy it here on Earth?
I read Miracles this summer. Lewis supposes that not even sexuality will be taken away from the saints in eternity. That sounds blasphemous only because we associate the fulfilment of sexuality with the act. He notes that sexuality is the instrument of celibacy as well as of conjugal virtue. He implies that the true eternal fulfilment of sexuality will make the act useless and boring. Specifically, he uses the image of a child who thinks that eating chocolates is the highest pleasure. That child wouldn’t understand why adults wouldn’t be thinking about chocolates during sexual intimacy.
So, just saying that I think it’s safe to claim that nothing from God’s creation will be lost — those things that are “fulfilled” will still exist in a way that is more real and whole than how we understand them now.
This may be rather tongue in cheek, but if that is the case, I guess that all of those folks that enjoy ocean cruises or deep sea fishing had better stop. After all, there is going to be no sea there according to Revelation 21. So, what happens to that bit of pop culture? 🙂
The reference to “and there is no sea” may perhaps be symbolic to mean “and there is no evil,” because the Hebrews considered the sea a dangerous, nasty place. Also the Beast comes out of the sea in Chapter 13, out of an ocean of evil. Note I said “may.” We need to remember that much, if not most, of the language of Revelation is symbolic and figurative. There is always a reality behind the symbol, as the sea perhaps representing evil.
Further, as an addendum, John was exiled on Patmos — and island surrounded by what? The sea. Everywhere his eyes turned, the ocean. North, south, east, west a continuous reminder of the evil that imprisoned him there. So his words may mean that the evil that placed him there will be no more. So, beach lovers, faint not…
Agreed. Earth wouldn’t be Earth without seas, and Revelation’s descriptions of New Jerusalem specifically describe a river of life. Rivers must go somewhere …
Interesting, Shannon, that same passage from the post caught my eye, too. In combination with the one below, I have to think things in the new earth will be far different:
Why do we think, freed from sin, we will WANT to listen to some bit of music composed by an enemy of God (because that’s what people who do not repent actually are) rather than to the songs of angels? Why would we want to go to a sin-free Magic Mountain or Disneyland or spend our evenings listening to standup comedians? I don’t think we can possibly understand what a radical, perfected nature will do to our desires and intentions.
David said his prayer was, “That I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, / To behold the beauty of the Lord / And to mediate in His temple” (Psalm 27:4b). Honestly, I can’t imagine that our everlasting life will be less preoccupied with God than what Spirit-filled David desired for his temporal life.
Becky
A few thoughts:
But, as you wisely noted elsewhere, a comments section may not be the best place to hash out these things! 🙂
THIS is what I’m talkin about Rebecca! Moses, in a moment of intimate conversation with the Lord Moses cries out “I pray You, show me Your glory!” (Maybe he should’ve asked if God had heard any good jokes lately or for a video game)
Everybody knows God told him “no man can see my face and live”, and he gave him a glimpse from the cleft of the rock as he “passed by”. (Exodus 33)
Give me the words of Paul “For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face; now I know in part, but then I will know fully just as I also have been fully known.” (1 Cor 13)
OHHH halleluJAAAAH! 🙂 THAT’S what I want. I can’t wait to shed this whole pitiful world and gaze once and for all into that glorious beautiful face as he tells me “well done my good and faithful servant”. Today wouldn’t be soon enough. I can say from the core of my heart. I would submit to being slowly boiled in oil and all that is of this earth gone to me forever, for one second to stand in the blinding purity of His holiness and survive.
“carnivals, comedy films, comics, jokes and video games?” Seriously 🙂
Stephen, there ain’t nuthin wrong with you that a good old fashioned dose of godly affliction and hardship won’t fix.
2 Cor.:11
far more labors, in far more imprisonments, beaten times without number, often in danger of death. 24Five times I received from the Jews thirty-nine lashes. 25Three times I was beaten with rods, once I was stoned, three times I was shipwrecked, a night and a day I have spent in the deep. 26I have been on frequent journeys, in dangers from rivers, dangers from robbers, dangers from my countrymen, dangers from the Gentiles, dangers in the city, dangers in the wilderness, dangers on the sea, dangers among false brethren; 27I have been in labor and hardship, through many sleepless nights, in hunger and thirst, often without food, in cold and exposure. 28Apart from such external things, there is the daily pressure on me of concern for all the churches.
Which TV series, or movie, or comedian, or sporting event or video game did Paul longed for as his reward?
I volunteer to take up an offering to send you overseas to our dying brethren so you can tell them about all the “carnivals, comedy films, comics, jokes and video games” and other hip n groovy pop culture they’re missing out on over there and how, thank God they’ll have them soon enough.
I just refuse to believe that you’ll always believe this. This is tantamount to the prosperity gospel for eternity.
Tiribulus, this sounds all super-spiritual but doesn’t address my texts above.
And as I’ve already written to Jill:
Of course the New Earth will be about Jesus Christ. Of course it will be about being lost in His glory and Face and wonderment. Of course it will all be about Him, point to Him, exalt Him, magnify Him, and make us go insane over His fantastic glory.
But nothing in the Bible points to the notion that simply sitting there in some kind of spiritual state, “lost in God,” as it were, is the epitome of our eternal existence.
One is forced to import such a notion from someplace outside the Bible.
Note that I’m not saying this is a heresy or a notion that would require separation; I’m simply saying: Got a verse for that? Or a verse or reason to deny the above explorations of Scripture passages about the material enjoyments of the future Kingdom, as other biblical faithful authors — many with great suffering backstories — have similarly explored?
It’s hilariously absurd, blame-shifting (it’s not man’s sinful abuse to blame, it’s all those evil worldly amusements out there!), and of course Gnostic to suppose that all these material things are sickeningly corrupt all on their own and not good gifts that sinful man twists for sinful ends. And it’s arrogant to claim that the only reason anyone would defend them, or explore how these things could be used in the future Kingdom to glorify the King, is because of personal worldliness or materialism.
Let us say that I decide that love for another human being (a factor of human marriage) and the enjoyment of food is terribly unspiritual, forever tainted by sins such as lust and gluttony, and can never be a part of the eternal Kingdom. Let us say that I grudgingly admit we can get along with these things here, but — I say — won’t it be even better to only be thankful to God and not deal with all that stuff!
But it’s actually this belief that Paul actually kinda equates with false teaching:
See here: “spiritual” activities such as Bible-study and prayer can be used to make other things — everything created by God such as food, marriage, and also culture and imagination — holy, so that we can enjoy them with thanksgiving to the Giver.
If you can’t see that yet, perhaps you will sometime. But a claim that anyone who wants to explore this is simply justifying sin is (unintentional?) arrogant nonsense.
Stephen, I wonder what you think Mt 24:35 means when it says that heaven and earth will pass away? Or Rev 21:1 that states, “Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more.” That sounds to me like much more of a profound change then simply a purging of the sinful.
And as Shannon mentioned above, it would seem from what Jesus said that even marriage will not be a part of the new heaven and the new earth. Mt 22:29-30. If the most basic of building blocks of culture–husband and wife–that were instituted by God Himself at the beginning of human history are not to be a part of the “culture” of the new earth, why should we expect that carnivals, video games, and etc will be?
On the Matthew 22:30 verse about marriage in heaven, many people overlook a simple fact. It reads:
Note, Jesus does not say people will not be married, or marriage bonds dissolved that have been established in this life. He only says that people will not marry in heaven. Keep in mind this was in answer to the Sadducees’ question of whose wife of the seven husbands she’d had in this life would she be, as if someone would pick one and finalize things once in heaven.
Granted, the marital relationship will be different there, maybe radically so. Fulfilled is a good concept, though we don’t understand all that will mean. So I’m not saying we’ll be having sex up there, but I don’t know we won’t either. Rather, I think we’ll be preoccupied with greater joys and concerns there. What it will look like remains to be seen.
But if my wife is no longer my wife in heaven, then my sons will no longer be my sons, my brothers will no longer be my brothers. They are so by union between two people. Dissolve that union, and you dissolve the whole family bond it created.
Marriage creates a real bond. A bond that can be corrupted and broken, but you can’t unring that bell. That union is a permanent part of your history and who you are as a person. God may radically alter the value and outworking of that bond, but He isn’t going to delete it from our lives. He told them there would be no new marital arrangements made in heaven. It is then speculation to say what will happen to existing bonds based on His words in that verse.
Rick, to err on the side of safety (and from what I understand is the default position of Christians throughout Church history) I always agree that marriage will be fulfilled in the Kingdom. But I’m quite open to your rationale — which I have heard elsewhere — and agree that Jesus only specifically addressed not being given in marriage. Technically the fate of existing marriages, and even physical relations, is at best left unanswered. I think it’s safe to say, though, that either way such strong familial relationships will carry over to the New Earth because of the broad biblical concepts of individuality and continuity.
That’s why I understand that my wife will still be my wife in heaven. Familial relationships are based upon and exist from the marital relationship. No marital relationship, no family relationship. The marital bond is just as important for my individuality and continuity as my family relationships.
Like I said, I have no idea how that relationship will change in heaven, or even whether I’ll be so wrapped up in glory that I’ll even care about it. Whatever it will be, that will be the fulfillment of it, as that’s what God does. Which is your whole point on culture in general.
For instance, Jesus fulfilled the OT sacrificial system. It was no longer necessary to sacrifice an animal to obtain forgiveness of sins. The fulfillment didn’t erase the purpose and basis for the sacrifices. Jesus’ sacrifice replaced them because they pointed to Him. Once He came, they were no longer needed. But that we needed our sins forgiven to be united to God still existed after Christ came. That was not done away with, but fulfilled in Christ.
So, for example, we currently unite two people into one flesh through sex. I don’t know what will happen to that, but one valid concept is that it will be fulfilled in Christ. The perfect union we will have with everyone in the Kingdom through Christ, devoid of sin, will make the union of sex no longer needed to accomplish that reality. Not because sex is bad, but because it is no longer necessary, just as the animal sacrifices were no longer necessary to accomplish the union with God. A more perfect means to do that had arrived.
That said, it still won’t erase the fact that in this life I had a special relationship with my wife. A unique bond I didn’t have with anyone else. I don’t think that gets erased from my identity in Christ and that I won’t have some type of special connection with her in the next life as I expect to have with any other family or friend.
But how the fulfillment of marriage in the next life will change that relationship, both marital and family, in all its particulars, I don’t know. I don’t think any of us do. So we can say no one’s going to get married in heaven. What existing marital bonds will look like, Scripture doesn’t reveal except in the cryptic “be like the angels” comment. Which doesn’t help since we have little knowledge of angelic relational dynamics either.
Move that over to culture. Culture will be redeemed. In that process, sin will be burned away and filtered out. Some aspects of it will no longer be needed, having served their purpose but would be inferior to the cultural dynamics of heaven, so no need to seek after them. But the basic need for a culture will still exist. founded in Christ. We’ll still interact with each other in a community. The result of that interaction is a culture. And by definition, it will be pop-culture, because it will be the most popular, being the only culture we even desire to live.
And like marriage, the culture we’ve experienced in this life will go into making us who we are in the next life. Nothing in God’s Word indicates He’ll do a memory wipe of this life on us before waking up in His kingdom. It will still exist as part of our history and identity.
So then what os the answer to the Sadducee’s question?
“In the resurrection, therefore, of the seven, whose wife will she be? For they all had her.”
Tiribulus,
The question was a Saducee trick question. Unlike the Phariees, they didn’t believe in a life after death. The question was deigned to show the absurdity of believing in the resurrection, because in their culture a woman could only have one husband (unlike a man who could have multiple wives). So their assumption was that she couldn’t be a wife to all of them at the same time.a
So if Jesus said all of them, that would have cast a poor light upon Him. If He picked one, then they would point out that all of them had a valid claim. Catch 22.
The only solution would be for one to be picked and her married to them. Jesus was pointing out to them that you can’t pick one and get married to them. No weddings in heaven.
The strict answer would be the last one she was bonded to. But in the manner I’m referring to, she would have had that marital bond with all of them in her history. Thus in heaven she would have been a wife to all.
What that means in the next life is unclear, but not doubt goes back to why Jesus said God’s design didn’t include more than one spouse.
RL says: “The question was a Sadducee trick question.”
I know that. I’m also fully aware of the belief systems of the day, including theirs. I understand the intent of the Sadducees completely.
“The only solution would be for one to be picked and her married to them.”
Actually not only is that not the only solution, but it’s no solution at all. Unless you’ve already ruled out what IS the only solution. The one held by pretty much the whole of historic orthodoxy since ancient times.
R L says: “What that means in the next life is unclear,”
Not if the church has been right for a couple thousand years. I started a big long technical exegetical response about Greek present participles and their acting as adjectives where Koine Greek doesn’t actually have an adjective for the idea being expressed. (long story requiring tons of research which is why I shelved it for the time being)
For now let’s try this.
1st Corinthians 7:39
“A wife is bound as long as her husband lives; but if her husband is dead, she is free to be married to whom she wishes, only in the Lord. “
This is not a trick question from the Sadducees. It is a command from the Lord through the apostle Paul. Whose wife is she in the resurrection?
There is a couple in our church where the woman’s first husband died pretty young. They were rock solid believers. The wife promised him before he died that she would care for his mother while it was in any way within her power to do so. She married her present husband who cared for this women’s first husband’s mother, financially and she stayed with them for the 18 years she lived after they were married. The wife had children by both.
Whose husband is she in the resurrection as she had immense godly bonds and children from both, all in a lawful God pleasing fashion?
This is simple friend. The only marriage that exists after this life is the one between Christ and His then glorified church bride. All others being fulfilled in IT.
It is not inconsistent to believe that you will know that your wife was once your wife. Or that any other lawfully married persons will know all their lawful spouses were once lawful spouses either. Or even once unlawful spouses in the cases of forgiven sin. The same might reasonably go for every other familial relation as well. A present married state is not required for the persistence of at least the knowledge of people as being those familial relations. And even if it were, we haven’t actually established that these familial relations will persist as such anyway.
IF, as the church has maintained forever, the human marriage covenant is eschatologically fulfilled in Christ, then God’s most ancient, most basic and most foundational cultural institution from which all others are spawned, is done away with.
Now we are back to square one with Shannon and Cherylu. IF that most ancient, most basic and most foundational cultural institution from which all others are spawned, is done away with, all bets are off on video games, carnivals and comedy.
Don’t get me wrong. I will not be disappointed in whatever God has for us because it will be from Him and I receive it with gladness and joy. BUT, there is no real case to be made for these worldly amusements being eternal. To say nothing of one the denial of which requires repentance 😉
BTW sir. If your motivation for this is that you just adore your wife this much? I find that romantic and touching and she should too. Seriously. That’s not a bad thing.
I was speaking from the perspective of the Sadducees. From their understanding, she’d have to be married to only one. Since they would be all alive in the resurrection, that became a problem, from their point of view.
As to historic orthodoxy since ancient times thing, I think you may not find that so unified on the subject. For example, St. John Chrysostom in writing to a young widow says the following:
As I said, aspects of marriage as it is in this life will pass away in the next, being fulfilled, but the purpose of marriage, the joining of two into one, will be perfected in Christ. It is God who joins the couple into one. While by law one may remarry, as Jesus stated in Mark 10:8, “And they twain shall be one flesh: so then they are no more twain, but one flesh.” Marriage to more than one person is a concession to man from God’s design.
This link states it better than I can in this short space as it reflects one ancient Christian teaching on this matter.
As Paul states in Ephesians, marriage is an image of our union with Christ. If the first death destroys that union fully, then what does that reflect about God’s joining of us with Him? The unions we create–legal, biological, social–are not eternal, but the union God creates is, whether of family, marriage, or with Himself.
Remember, before the Fall, God said it is not good for man to be alone, so He created for him a wife. God created marriage not as a concession to the Fall, but as part of our design specs. If we are to be redeemed in His Kingdom, glorified by His grace, where in Scripture does it say that God will eradicate what He created to be good? The bond of love will survive, though I’m sure it will manifest itself very differently in the life to come.
Uh, no. Paul does not present this as a command. She is free by law to remarry, as Paul puts it elsewhere. Paul is not talking about the spiritual bond of marriage here, but reflects that in the next verse (1 Cor 7:40), which he contrasts to this statement, “But she is happier if she so abide, after my judgment: and I think also that I have the Spirit of God.” His judgment being in context that she not remarry, but remain celibate. Pretty much what St. John recommended to the young widow above.
Jesus never directly answered the question other than to say she would not be given in marriage to one of them as the Sadducees assumed must happen. So any answer on our parts would be our best guesses based on what Jesus said marriage is. A case could be made for the first one, the last, or all. So I’ll refrain from answering a question Jesus didn’t answer, for neither did He say none either.
Ah, but there is the rub. Fulfilling something doesn’t do away with it, it completes it. Sure, certain aspects of that union in this life will no longer be needed, and are done away with, but the purpose of that marriage, to unite the two into one, to be fulfilled means it continues on in some fashion. Otherwise it is not a fulfillment, but an abolishing. Yes, marriage will be fulfilled in Christ. It will strengthen that union, not do away with it. It will purify it, not destroy it. As Jesus said, the united couple is “two no more.”
@ R.L. Copple. I started but didn’t finish my response to you tonight
Got very sidetracked today too and am now falling over sitting here.
R.L.‘s biblical exposition is simply that overpowering. 🙂
Thanks for your challenges, Cherylu. I’ll offer some responses one by one:
Well, I believe it can’t mean something like “dying” or annihilation, because a) Heaven is where God is and will last forever; b) as you mention, there is a new heavens and new earth.
Of note: “new” in this sense is “made new,” not “new” as in “wholly unlike the previous one.”
It might. But are you sure? Many other biblical passages speak of things like “the creation itself” (Rom. 8) awaiting its redemption just as we await ours. Isaiah 60, and 65-66 speak of a future earthly paradise as if it’s very similar to today’s earth — except all its citizens worship God.
Agreed (as I mentioned in my comment). Yet I think Jesus’s words about human marriage being fulfilled actually strengthens my point that non-sinful activities in this world will continue in the next world. In fact, “marriage” does continue in New Earth, by the way, because Jesus Christ will be united with His Church. So marriage is not technically removed, but fulfilled.
I will repeat my question from above, though: why assume that they won’t be? Will their purpose in some way be “fulfilled”? If so, why does Scripture not specifically say that such things will have no place in the Kingdom? And moreover, why does Scripture specifically include the glory of kings, the ships of Tarshish, etc., among its descriptions of the eternal Kingdom? I do take these prophecies literally. (I can provide the references when I’m near a Bible later, if you wish.) I also note that in the descriptions of the New Jerusalem are fascinating descriptions of materials that have been refined by man’s cultural activities — e.g. there is gold made transparent, which only craftspersons can do, and jewels rather than raw minerals, which only mankind’s culture can help produce. (Credit to Andy Crouch’s Culture Makers for this.)
So: Before I say that popular culture is eternal, I do say that human culture is an eternal gift of God. Once that is established — as Scripture clearly indicates in the above-referenced texts — it’s a simple matter of asking: If human culture such as government (kings), economy and transportation (ships of Tarshish), and forms of craftsmanship (jewels, materials, etc.) will be part of the New Heavens and New Earth, why presume that other forms of culture — even “low culture” such as carnivals and video games — will have no place in the eternal Kingdom?
Finally, if they have no place there, why should we enjoy such things this side of eternity?
Stephen, would you please give me the references for those verses so I know which ones you are referring to for sure. Thank you.
I will be gone much of the evening here so I don’t know when I will get back to this conversation.
Stephen, just a quick question. Are you saying that the gold and gems that are used in the New Jerusalem are refined or shaped by the literal hands of man?
Hi again Cherylu! I’m glad to continue exploring this topic: Your last discussion point first:
Of this I’m not sure, but I do know that whether symbol or not, the fact that New Jerusalem is described as including refined metals and minerals is a clear reference to the city being built not only of “raw” materials — much less “spiritual” components — but the culture of humankind. God endorses, and does not overthrow, the cultural mandate He gave mankind way back in Genesis. The very fact that the city is a city, the epitome of human culture, and not a garden like His original creation, alone endorses His vision for humans to create and reflect His image.
References about human culture being part of the eternal kingdom:
A lot of this article builds on previous books about New Earth based on Scripture, such as Randy Alcorn’s Heaven and Andy Crouch’s Culture Makers. (Other good books include Heaven Is Not My Home and Heaven Is A Place on Earth, and alas the evangelical Christians authors names escape me at the moment.) My own shorter (and freer) explorations of the topic on SpecFaith are accessible under the New Heavens and New Earth tag, including Fiction Christians from Another Planet! VII: Attack of the Spiritoids, and the more-seriously-titled Resurrection, part 4: Creation Will Rise. However, one cannot speak of creation’s promised renewal without first exploring the nature of reasons for Christ’s bodily resurrection and what he has promised for his people’s physical, eternal, super-bodily resurrection.
Stephen,
First of all I have found it quite curious that you are seemingly certain that the prophecies in Isaiah are literal but take the reference to the sea in Revelation to almost certainly be symbolic. May I ask why you are so certain that Isaiah is literal?
Secondly, I have an observation concerning Isaiah 60. Are you utterly certain that this whole chapter, including the part that speaks of the ships of Tarshish, speaks of the time after the new heavens and new earth spoken of in Revelation are revealed? If that is so, why do we have evil nations that will not serve God’s people as part of that eternal Kingdom? See verse 12. All evil has already been purged and all evildoers cast into the lake of fire and have no part in that new heaven and new earth. But if this whole chapter speaks of the new heavens and the new earth, we have evil within it that still must be destroyed. That is a very incongruous view, to say the least.
HG Ferguson explained the reasons for the “no longer any sea” interpretation.
As for the symbolic-versus-literal issue altogether, I wouldn’t lose any sleep if someone could show that the “ships of Tarshish,” etc., were symbolic — but in that case it would still strengthen the case that this future world includes something that is about human culture, trade, transportation, etc. Perhaps the prophet was “translating” the image for his original hearers; perhaps there were not be a literal “flag of Tarshish” on these ships, but even then the point would be: culture is there.
Yes.
I can “cheat” and cite from Alcorn’s book (alluded above), such as chapter 9 (PDF).
More:
Verse 12 sounds like a callback to the present-day reality: nations that won’t serve God will perish. Then back (by verse 13) to describe the present: in which none of the present nations are evil but in fact all of them delightedly serve the true King.
Some interpreters, to be sure, believe these texts are more specifically about a literal thousand-year kingdom on Earth — a prelude to the New Heavens and New Earth. I wouldn’t lose any sleep if they were right either. But the point would remain: there is nothing intrinsically wrong with trade, culture, economy, metalworking, etc., and in the Kingdom (for a thousand years and/or for eternity) everyone will use these things to honor God. Even without these texts, it’s actually imcumbent on someone to prove from Scripture that — after the cultural mandate of Gen. 1 that was part of God’s original purpose for man — there is any Scriptural or theological reason for God to “roll back” this mandate and switch to some other eternal purpose for man. Nothing in Scripture would indicate that these things have been so “stained” by sin that the very idea of them must be obliterated; it was man’s sin against the world, not the world’s sin against the man, that has corrupted the age and required special redemption by Christ to set free sinful men (those who repent and put faith in Him, that is) and then to set free “creation itself” (Rom. 8)!
Hence, my conviction that Christian artists, thinkers, and cultural critics are in the unique position to combine the lofty romanticism of the secular intellectualist with the inclusive humanity of the secular low-culture hedonist. Christian thinkers lifted the fairy tale from its belittled cultural position and gave it the dignity and the romantic idealism of high poetry. Now we should do the same for things like comics, anime, videogames, and new forms of digital storytelling.
Clap. Clap. Clap.
Thank God for those Christians who are already doing this … and often unseen …
For example, I just found out Saturday that Nick Park, creator of the Wallace and Gromit animated shorts and the animated studio Aardman, is a Christian.
Somehow this makes me enjoy Aardman films (except Flushed Away) even more.
I sure am glad to find out that I won’t have to give up my beloved tiddly winks in order to experience eternal sinless glorification in the presence of the holy exalted Christ.
http://www.zen60163.zen.co.uk/CUTwCWebContent/EdAndHarley.jpg
Not speaking at all from a Christian perspective, I’ve tended to find pop culture dull, shallow, and rather stupid. It has do with brands and in-groups and out-groups and getting people to part with precious cash. I certainly don’t dislike all of it, but the vast majority of it completely loses my interest in about five minutes. So this vision of eternity that includes pop culture–well, it sounds tedious. I mean, come on–are the cool kids in heaven going to have the best toys and flashiest Air Jordans? Or maybe I’ll be forced to enjoy endless video games because I thought they were so mind-numbingly boring on earth. If so, great. I’m going to be a reject in heaven just like on earth. *Misanthrope walks away grumbling.*
I relate to the feeling, because I’ve never felt like a legitimate geek (or gamer for that matter). I don’t often get pop culture references, and often I’m too apathetic to care. I fear being awkward almost more than anything else, and pop culture makes me feel awkward more often than not.
But I think the chintzy awkwardness of pop culture is only one aspect of it. The other aspect is the myriad forms that it takes, and those forms are serious and real. Videogames, for instances, might genuinely be boring for some (or many) people, but the cultural association of immaturity and shallowness attributed to videogames are artificial.
I think in heaven we’ll be able to look at a videogame and a high literary poem equally without any cultural expectations. You won’t need to be a high critic to be allowed to appreciate the poem. You won’t need to know the secret handshake and the gamer jargon in order to appreciate the videogame.
Jill, note that I’m here exploring only one aspect of the eternal kingdom: its popular culture, which will be an aspect of culture, which will be an aspect of fulfilling the cultural mandate of Gen. 1:26-28 (after we’re finally free from sin), which will be an aspect of praising our Creator/Savior in all that we do. If this were a website about, say, Christian stamp-collecting, I might be writing about how the cultural niche-practice of stamp-collection could glorify God for all eternity. Yet it’s not the sum-total of our existence.
You just made some pop culture though, in writing this very comment or participating on the internet. Scholars of this sort of thing disagree on what counts as popular culture especially because Shakespeare used to be popular culture, and musical genres such as jazz used to be considered “lowbrow” (an unfortunate term with racial connotations!) but have since been accepted as “classical” music — or is it popular music that’s classical? Furthermore, consider a musical composition such as John Williams’s famous theme for Superman. Is this “popular culture” because it’s based on a superhero character film in 1978, or just “culture” because it’s a classical-style march?
Sure, that’s an issue with a lot of popular culture, but among the pyrite there’s gold in them there hills. Ted Turnau has an excellent chapter in Popologetics that deals with some Christians’ suspicions that popular culture is inferior culture.
And I doubt a lot of that stuff will survive the refining/sin-purging fire of 2 Peter 3.
It sounds like you expect a monotonous joyless eternity in the first place. Which begins to sound like you believe God is a killjoy. (Correct this if necessary.) Why?
“It sounds like you expect a monotonous joyless eternity in the first place. Which begins to sound like you believe God is a killjoy. (Correct this if necessary.) Why?” Um, no, only if it’s an eternity of pop culture, as should have been clear from the comment. Believe it or not, I actually don’t like much of pop culture, which means pop culture would in itself be the killjoy. I expect eternity with Christ to be more profound–essentially what I’ve always longed for in my soul, which is a complete departure from the shifting aspect of pop culture. Pop culture, by the very nature of what it is, is changeable. What’s popular one moment loses its fandom, sometimes overnight. Pop culture is essentially vapid because public taste is vapid. It’s led by advertisers and appeals to the lust of the flesh and the boastful pride of life. That doesn’t make all pop culture shallow or bad art in the long run, if we’re talking about music or stories rather than toys and clothes; however, what is popular for a blip in history is not something that I put my faith and hope for all eternity in. If there is jazz music in heaven, so be it. It will be unceasingly beautiful and melodic and have none of the popular associations it did here on earth, nor the boredom with the fad that sets in here on earth. Therefore, it won’t be pop culture.
Consumerism is a sinful abuse of good gifts such as trade and creativity.
Thus consumerism will have not part of the New Heavens and New Earth.
But I’m sure there culture and popular culture will be available there for those who are interested in it. I for one would not care if people had line-dancing in New Earth, but my wife and sister-in-law would love it. (And maybe I would stop being cranky and could eventually try it out and enjoy it — but only there.) I’m sure there could be stamp-collectors and gaming and all kinds of things, finally set free from sinful corruption by man and able to be enjoyed as full expressions of humanity, which itself honors the God Who created humans in his image and told humankind to “subcreate.”
I’m also certain that even if we don’t care for others’ sinless, glorified expressions and explorations of culture, we will rejoice in the fact that they are praising God with it.
This bainespal fella sparks a serious question for me. What, pray tell, do you pop culturists actually mean by “culture”?
This is one summary of a biblical definition of the cultural mandate from Nine Marks Ministries.
Human society, and the context that gives meaning to elements to elements in society. That context is in constant flux and we each modify it by our work.
The (human) reason I’m most inclined to use to support this post is the matter of individual callings. The Church has long had to combat the notion that some jobs and callings are more “spiritual” than others, when this is not the case. Similarly, most have probably heard the saying that “a Christian carpenter builds more than churches.” Everything we do is to bring glory to God by the quality and attitude we bring to our work, but it isn’t all related directly to God or the Bible. I’m sure hoping that people like computer programmers, farmers, plumbers, editors (like me!), and more can still use their God-given gifts in heaven. (Hate to mention an argument against my own theory, but I have no idea what that means for doctors and nurses–God must have some plan.)
Amen.
The doctrine of vocation is another outgrowth of the cultural mandate and the fact that every good job, untained by sin — yes, every job — glorifies our working Creator because we reflect His image. When we decide that only “religious” or overtly spiritual work such as preaching, teaching, Bible study, prayer, and missionary work are more important than other callings — plumbing, building, engineering, motherhood — we seem to be confusing the means for the ends. Remember 1 Tim. 4:4: other good gifts from God are made holy through the word and through prayer.
(Of course, if someone was challenging the reverse and saying that prayer, teaching, preaching, evangelism, etc., did not matter nearly so much as other activities, this comment would be far different. But so far no on here has said the other thing.)
The Great Commission is designed not as an end to itself — as if the Christian’s “chief end” is to evangelize and disciple — but as a vital repair to humanity: to bring individuals away from sin and to relationship with their Creator, so they can finally begin to image Him in their flourishing activities in a way they couldn’t before.
Just the other day my wife and I were talking about this and wondering how such callings might be “translated.” We’ll no longer have to do surgeries, research for treatments, etc., but study of the human body and how it works has proved valuable for cultural objects that help enhance its functions in other ways. For sure, our bodies in New Earth will be supercharged because they will be spiritual bodies — that is, Spirit-raised bodies wholly immune to decay and sin (1 Cor. 15) and perhaps with other ablities as well (perhaps like Jesus’s resurrection body?). But who knows what scientific disciplines will carry over in some way, allowing those who were once doctors and nurses to put their former occupations to work studying perfect bodies?
Sometimes I think Christians look at how fallen our world is and forget that, beneath all the corruption, there is beauty waiting to be restored when Christ returns. When it comes to pop culture I have no idea what the “restoration” will look like. One thing’s for sure though, it will be amazing. I can’t wait to see what God has in store!
To quote Fellowship of the Ring:
Alas for Lothlórien that I love! It would be a poor life in a land where no mallorn grew. But if there are mallorn-trees beyond the Great Sea, none have reported it.”
Granted, it’s a reference to Valinor, the realm of the Blessed Ones who were before the creation of the world, but the sentiment is very similar. And the conversation in Morgoth’s Ring about the love of Arda and the contrasting nature of men and elves….
I don’t think you can make this leap. The problem with it is that the nature of life will be so radically changed that we have no idea what the resulting culture would look like.
There will be no death. The concept of striking a person to cause injury will be a distant memory. There will be no land grabs, no villains, no antagonists of any kind. You will not feel pain, or sorrow. We may not even need to kill things to eat, or eat at all. There will be no disease, nothing as simple as a common cold. It’s not a disembodied existence, but its not the life we live now either.
What culture that would exist in this world would be as alien to us as something from outer space. You have a weird paradox; you can believe in the idea that our life with God will be physical, but it will wind up still being as alien to us over the long haul as being in heaven playing harps.
Not to say culture is bad; I’d be stupid if I did. It’s just that it’s going to be so radically different that we have no idea what the culture would be like if at all. You’re making a bit of a leap here in the pursuit of a noble cause.
What dmdutcher has said here is close enough to what I had been contemplating saying myself, as far as it goes, for me to give it an AMEN and thank him for saving me some typing. Very good sir.
Especially when our friend Stephen rather arrogantly demands that: “We must repent of our blindness to such a vast vision of redemption”. As if it were sin to deny it.
I am as narrow and dogmatic and unbending and close minded as anybody one is likely to encounter when there is sound witness from the scriptures and the historical church to justify it. This is absolutely NOT one of those areas. On MOST eschatological topics actually.
All snark and needling aside, lighthearted though it’s been. If I had no history with Stephen at all and had simply stumbled upon this article as my first exposure to him. I would see this as the musings of a young man projecting his personal wish list into eternity because he has indulged himself in worldly amusements to the level of not being able to imagine God’s paradise without them. Not a specific item per se, but a cleverly devised intellectual umbrella under which he can safely see his pet pleasures being included.
That is my sincere assessment.
It’s not a bad message, and now it’s important for people to realize that culture does have a strong, redemptive power. He’s not bad for doing this-it’s a noble aim to do what he does rather than treat culture as something akin to a virus or tool of satan. If anything, Christians need to get over the inordinate fear of culture they have. It’s just heaven is going to be so different that it beggars the mind and destroys any preconception of how it may be that we will have.
I think we will have some form of culture like he says, but it’s going to be unlike anything we can know. C.S. Lewis in the Great Divorce talked a bit about the culture that might exist, with the first step being relearning how to see. Maybe it will take a thousand years of seeing the world through redeemed eyes before we can even pick up a pencil. Heaven’s the one concept about the Christian faith that really unnerves me at times; the gap between what I am and what God wills me to be there is so great as to be unfathomable.
I don’t see how it could be otherwise. The alternative would be to declare some form of culture and/or pop ulture as the heavenly version. Would that be 21st century American? Fourteenth century European? First century Middle Eastern? Twenty-second century (if Christ patiently tarries for another hundred years) Asian? Or what about African culture or Hispanic? Will heaven be filled with Mariachi music instead of symphonies? Or will each ethnicity and each generation huddle in their own corner of the new earth and practice cultural and generational diversity?
Becky
And see here again? This is brilliant Rebecca. What’s it gonna take for you to understand that it’s just stuff like this that has motivated me the last couple months?
Yes Maam. What if Jesus tarries another thousand years all this “pop culture” we think is no nifty and neato today is known only in some future tech museum somewhere by then?
Personally? I don’t care. Eschatology is my weakest area of study. (that’s a confession. Not a virtue) I just want outta this sinful flesh and into the direct unmediated presence of our God and His glorious exalted Christ. If He wants to hook me up with some sooper dooper Nintendo outfit so I can play Consecrated Contra and Sanctified Street Fighter, where the commies and capitalists (Zangief and Guile 🙂 ) fall into one another’s arms in tearful mutual Holy Ghost forgiveness for the cold war, then I’ll take it. He knows best.
Greg, I still have my complete Left Behind series and nonfiction Tim LaHaye books, which I used to conflate with deep eschatalogical study. 🙂 Now I realize that too many Christians get bogged down in the pres and posts and et ceteras — and really I don’t mind what Christians believe about that, except I may now challenge the “rapture” concept as it’s popularly understood. We end the end-times exploration right when it would help the most: when we focus on the fact that Jesus is coming and could return any time, and that after He comes He will resurrect His people and renew His creation — which is a source of great comfort and motivation for holiness.
As regards eschatology? I AM certain of what I DON’T believe. I could never be a dispensationalist or believe in a pretribulation “rapture”. No way. I am no “Left Behind” guy.
I think you folks have misunderstood me. I haven’t suggested specifically that there is anything especially good or special about today’s popular culture, but that the concept of popular culture, as part of human culture, as part of the cultural mandate, is a good gift of God that will continue for eternity.
I suggest the answer is Option 3: as Scripture says (in the above-referenced texts), each culture from each nation and each era will have its own kinds and gifts to bring into the New Jerusalem, meaning that the city — somewhat like any city today — will be a cornucopia of diverse delights and cultural wonders, all of which bring glory to the King. Missionaries today catch a bit of this when they see how different churches in different cultures reflect the Gospel and their praise using their various cultural practices that they can begin to enjoy as they are beginning to be set free from their own depravity and sinful abuse of things.
There is no one culture from any nation or era that is the “most spiritual.” Rather as the book of Acts and the epistles show, the Kingdom “colonizes” every single people group and culture and begins to change them from the inside-out.
And it says in another place:
This is why Christians should evangelize, why they should strive to support foreign missions and contribute to this great multitude — so that literally “a great multitude … from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages” will be there in Heaven (and then will “reign[ on the earth” as is the promise repeated in Heaven). All these peoples and languages and cultures will reflect in their multitudes of cultural colors the brilliance of the Creator’s light.
I for one want to finally learn some languages, and travel to these other countries — with no risk of getting dangerously lost or confronting a war or other event that comes from a sinful age — and meet these many saints and explore their redeemed, finally-made-sinless, mind-blowing praiseworthy cultures.
Here’s the thing though, DM. I also agree that life will be radically different from the way it is now. But here’s my chief point: according to Scripture, life then will be more similar to the way it is now, than it will be similar to some kind of existence in which humans have shed their skin and bones and physical nature — as some Christians believe or at least suspect. And when you read Scripture, you read all kinds of descriptions about fields and grapes and houses and trade and governments and very human, earthly things like that. That’s not me speculating. That’s just Scripture.
Once more for everyone here: if this were a Christian blog about stamp-collecting or 4H or barrel-riding or some other niche interest, I would write an article — or address this topic in other articles — that such an interest can both exalt our Creator here and could exalt Him in the future. Yet it’s even more vital to explore about how popular culture (and culture) will be part of the New Earth, because it encompasses all these things and because the Bible itself specifically uses such images.
Amen!
I’m not sure about that. If anything I am sure we will more vividly recall that old age of suffering and sin and see it all in far better perspective. If this seems unimaginable — how strange would it be to think of an eternity in which we both recall suffering and sin and yet it doesn’t hurt us in the slightest! — then I would repeat your same truth: that life will be so radically changed that it can be hard to imagine here. 🙂 There is a notion about that in Heaven we’ll forget our old lives, yet Scripture never says that.
Amen amen amen amen.
Un-amen. 🙂 Why not? Jesus ate after He was resurrected to prove that he was human, and there is no reason to suppose that the marriage feast of the Lamb is allegorical.
Amen. Here’s the difference, though: there is nothing inherently unspiritual or sinful about eating (or remembering an instance of sin/suffering), and yet Adam and Eve ate and did (or would have done) many other things before the Fall. Once again I suggest that there is a temptation to think that we too easily presume that because of man’s sinful abuse of self, God’s world, and his own creations, that God will not only roll back all of these good gifts for humans (some people even suspect that in Heaven they will cease to be distinct individuals with their own memories!) but spread the doom to things that he originally created good, such as animals and eating and drinking.
I must again ask which Scriptures support the concept of eternity as “alien.”
I do expect to arrive in the New Earth and be completely blown away by everything, every moment of every day (though surely with emotional ups/downs, states of excitement and good fatigue, etc., as we experience even sinlessly) — especially by the constantly glorious presence of God Himself. But I do not expect it to be “alien.”
Perhaps … but in that case what do you make of the above texts about then-familiar cultural images such as ships of trade, silver and gold, and agriculture in the Old Testament alone? If God had wanted to convey the idea of an “alien” eternity (well, something more alien than ships of a Gentile city-state serving the true God), why would He not have said so here? If God had wanted to convey to us the idea of an eternity that isn’t like Earth, why repeat the phrase “new heaven and new earth” in Rev. 21 and then go on to describe the New Jerusalem in very OT-echoing, earthly terms?
Do note that this is a friendly debate, DM. 🙂 There can be no heresy committed in biblical exploration or even biblically based speculation about eternity, so long as it avoids denials of God’s self-revealed nature or heretical excesses such as universalism.
Well yeah, humans do tend to make those things. But human nature will radically change, and it would affect those institutions in ways that we’d be unable to predict or would find odd or unearthly. Like why would you need a house? The cold wouldn’t bother you, and you can’t die from exposure. You may not even need to have specific possessions, because no one would steal them from you. We take a lot of human nature for granted, and good science fiction looks at this and speculates on it.
You quoted Isaiah 65, but seem to overlook verse 17:
“See, I will create new heavens and a new earth. The former things will not be remembered, nor will they come to mind.
I think though this is a sophisticated argument that some enterprising Christian author can really write a book about. I don’t know whether or not that kind of transformation can exist, so that we could look on any sin but our own in a manner that robs it of its ability to affect us. That we could look on artifacts of sin that do so really is something to speculate on, and considering Adam and Eve ate from the tree of Knowledge, it’s not a simple subject.
A lot of Christians have used the River Lethe as a metaphor for such. We can debate this, because whatever happens at the end no one minds, but again it might be a lot more complex than we think. Maybe for some of us, we need to forget our sins completely:
As far as the east is from the west, So far has He removed our transgressions from us. Psalm 103: 12
Eating meat requires the death of living things. We’re really not sure what happened in the Garden, and given from what we know of the ages of the first people, I think we can speculate that their mode of life was different from our own. It depends I guess on how much you think the world changed once Adam and Eve were forced out of the garden.
A feeling like this isn’t scriptural. If you had asked me ten years ago that I’d be perfectly happy not to buy a physical book ever again, I’d have scoffed at you. But the e-book revolution changed everything. The amount of change between our existence now and a perfect one in the new earth is so dramatic as to be alien to the way we are now. It’s good, but a perfect goodness is hard to fathom for creatures who struggle with sin.
When you consider vast amounts of time and change, you get that sense of alienness. Maybe when it finally happens, the part of us that will recognize it as the proper end of man will awaken, but I think it makes me a little uncomfortable at times in the same way considering the size of the universe does, or looking at a large ocean and thinking of being under miles of water.
I’m not saying He wants to convey it, although I’d point out in Isaiah 60 He mentions we won’t have the sun or the moon! I’m saying that the amount of change is going to beggar any real argument that human culture pre-fall will survive in any recognizable form. Sit down with a teenager today and try to explain to them the idea of a telephone booth and a pay phone, and you’ll get a puzzled look. Imagine looking back at a pre-fall world from a redeemed point, and I’d think that would be puzzled times five million.
I think God could really only explain things to us in ways we could understand anyways.
And why should it be alien? If God created us for eternity, then why would it be unsettling? It very well might be different from the world and our imagination, but to quote Jewel the Unicorn
Stephen quips: “R.L.‘s biblical exposition is simply that overpowering. “
Very cute Stephen 😉
I’m trying to work on it now. One thing after another is demanding my attention.
@ RL Copple:
I finally read your entire <a href=”http://orthodoxbridge.com/concerning-eternal-marriage/”>LINK</a>
Let me ask before I go any further. Are you saying you substantially agree with that article. I ask because, aside from a bit of an over trust of Chrysostom, I don’t have a VERY huge problem (I don’t think at first blush) with that article. I would probably state some things little differently though.
Ya know, my tagging is correct and this site refuses to render it. Nevermind. I think I know why. Of course I don’t think it has anything to do with me personally.
Do you think films would survive and really “good” good vs evil stories? (Ex: most superheroes, Frozen, httyd, among others) I usually say to others that I’m not materialistic because some people would think so, I think my purpose is to rewrite all of the most popular movies from Disney and others to make it more in line with the Word for His glory.
Interesting timing for your comment! We actually explore this to some degree in our upcoming book The Pop Culture Parent: Helping Kids Engage Their World for Christ. In short, Scripture constantly emphasizes that sin actually comes from human hearts, and is not “caught” from external things such as food or drink, or, we could add, popular culture. Resurrected people will have been raised incorruptible, so there’s no real need for New Earth to have fire-purged all pre-existing popular culture. However, other things called “popular culture” frankly have nothing redemptive about them (such as pornographic works). I don’t expect we’ll see them in the new creation.
At the same time, I don’t think we’re required to consider that Disney movies, superhero stories, and such, would require some revision in order to get into paradise. (Maybe we’ll have only PG-13 versions of Deadpool movies. I don’t know.) If we’re able to enjoy and discerningly engage these stories here on this Earth, without sinning any more than usual, then surely in New Earth, when we’ll not sin at all, we can enjoy these stories for what they are even more so. If we can’t do that here, why presume we’ll do it there?
I hope the social media in this age, which includes YouTube, Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, Snapchat, and TikTok, and almost all the posts in them will be restored in New Earth. I also hope the entertainment companies in this age such as Konami, Sega, Capcom, Square Enix, Nintendo, Riot Games, Blizzard Entertainment, Sony, Toei Animation, Marvel, DC, Disney, Warner Bros, Studio 4°C, Twentieth Century Fox, Naughty Dogs, Electronic Arts, and other companies and their works will be restored on New Earth.
A lot of people seem to forget in the first 2 chapters of the Bible that Adam had a perfect relationship with God when Eve was created. One is not a replacement for the other, they are different types of relationships that fulfill different desires. You don’t need a foretaste of what you already have. All reasons anyone has ever thought of for why sexuality would be eliminated contradict other parts of the Bible and their own logic.
Rodney Clapp”s book “New Creation” has a discussion of that question. He proposes, in the language of the Song of Solomon, that love is indeed stronger than death, and that although the scriptures are not definitive on this, there is reason to hope for sex in the new creation, even if there is no marriage or giving in marriage. If we are resurrected bodies, he proposes that our genitalia will not be mere ornamentation.
What do you think is going to happen to clitorises and sexually dimorphic body shapes?.
A lot of people seem to forget in the first 2 chapters of the Bible that Adam had a perfect relationship with God when Eve was created. One is not a replacement for the other, they are different types of relationships that fulfill different desires. You don’t need a foretaste of what you already have. All reasons anyone has ever thought of for why sexuality would be eliminated contradict other parts of the Bible and their own logic.
Rodney Clapp”s book “New Creation” has a discussion of that question. He proposes, in the language of the Song of Solomon, that love is indeed stronger than death, and that although the scriptures are not definitive on this, there is reason to hope for sex in the new creation, even if there is no marriage or giving in marriage. If we are resurrected bodies, he proposes that our genitalia will not be mere ornamentation.
What do you think is going to happen to clitorises and sexually dimorphic body shapes?.